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Found 35 article(s) for author 'Lawrence Katz'

What makes gig economy workers anxious? Lawrence Katz, March 8, 2018, Audio, “What do freelance writers, IT consultants and Mary Kay sellers all have in common? They are each a part of what’s commonly referred to as the “gig economy,” which is comprised of nontraditional employees who typically don’t have a single, steady employer who guarantees regular hours and pay.” Link

Imagining a Future of Work That Fosters Mobility for All. Lawrence Katz, February 2018, Paper, “We live in a time of rising economic polarization. Low- and high-wage jobs are growing, while those in the middle are declining or “hollowing out,” not just in the United States, but across the globe.2 Employment used to be a reliable path to economic stability and mobility for a wide range of workers, but that is no longer the case. In 2015, almost a quarter of working Americans earned poverty-level wages,3 defined as equal to or less than the hourly wage that a full-time, year-round worker must earn to sustain a family of four with two children at the official poverty threshold. Workers are confronting rapid labor market changes that are eroding key features of work once largely taken for granted. Five trends are shaping economic opportunity..” Link

Expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit for Workers Without Dependent Children. Lawrence Katz, September 2017, Paper, “In recent decades, wage inequality in the United States has increased and real wages for less-skilled workers have declined. As a result, many American workers are unable to adequately support their families through work, even working full time. The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) has helped to counter this trend and has become one of the nation’s most effective antipoverty policies. But most of its benefits have gone to workers with children. The maximum credit available to workers without dependent children is just over $500, and workers lose eligibility entirely once their annual earnings reach $15,000.” Link

The Role of Unemployment in the Rise in Alternative Work Arrangements. Lawrence Katz, 2017, Paper, “Much evidence indicates that the traditional nine-to-five employee-employer relationship is in decline. Although comprehensive, high-frequency data on US work arrangements are not available, the trend appears to have begun before the advent of the platform economy and the spread of online gig work.” Link

The Fall of the Labor Share and the Rise of Superstar Firms. Lawrence Katz, May 2017, Opinion, “The fall of labor’s share of GDP in the United States and many other countries in recent decades is well documented but its causes remain uncertain. Existing empirical assessments of trends in labor’s share typically have relied on industry or macro data, obscuring heterogeneity among firms. In this paper, we analyze micro panel data from the U.S. Economic Census since 1982 and international sources and document empirical patterns to assess a new interpretation of the fall in the labor share based on the rise of “superstar firms.” If globalization or technological changes advantage the most productive firms in each industry, product market concentration will rise as industries become increasingly dominated by superstar firms with high profits and a low share of labor in firm value-added and sales. As the importance of superstar firms increases, the aggregate labor share will tend to fall.” Link

Concentrating on the Fall of the Labor Share. Lawrence Katz, April 2017, Paper, “In this paper, we discuss an explanation for the fall in share of labour in GDP based on the rise of “superstar firms.” If globalization or technological changes advantage the most productive firms in each industry, product market concentration will rise as industries become increasingly dominated by superstar firms with high profit margins and a low share of labor in firm value-added and sales. As the importance of superstar firms increases, the aggregate labour share will fall. This hypothesis suggests that sales will increasingly concentrate in a small number of firms and that industries where concentration rises most will have the largest declines in the labour share. We find support for these predictions aggregating up micro-data from the US Census 1982-2012.” Link

Concentrating on the Fall of the Labor Share. Lawrence Katz, January 2017, Paper, “The recent fall of labor’s share of GDP in numerous countries is well-documented, but its causes are poorly understood. We sketch a “superstar firm” model where industries are increasingly characterized by “winner take most” competition, leading a small number of highly profitable (and low labor share) firms to command growing market share. Building on Autor et al. (2017), we evaluate and confirm two core claims of the superstar firm hypothesis: the concentration of sales among firms within industries has risen across much of the private sector; and industries with larger increases in concentration exhibit a larger decline in labor’s share.” Link

Forgive and Forget: Bankruptcy Reform in the Contest of For-Profit Colleges. David Deming, Claudia Goldin, Lawrence Katz, May 2015, Book Chapter. “Rosalyn Harris was a single mother determined to make life better for herself and her son. Unemployed and without a college degree, Harris believed enrolling in the two-year criminal justice program at the for-profit Everest College was the right step toward the opportunities that higher education would provide. Unfortunately for Harris, that was not the case. Despite Everest’s claims of a 75% job placement rate for students in the criminal justice program, she spent months unsuccessfully applying…” Link

Reducing inequality: Neighborhood and school interventions. Lawrence Katz, 2015, Paper. “Fifty years after the Civil Rights Act and the declaration of the War on Poverty, much has changed for the better in the United States, but substantial racial inequality persists. Large gaps remain between African Americans and whites in earnings, employment, family income, health, life expectancy, incarceration, teen pregnancy, educational attainment, and academic achievement. Substantial gaps also remain between Hispanics and whites in economic and educational outcomes. Differences in socioeconomic status are increasingly linked to differences in neighborhoods and schools…” Link

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